Discussion (23) ¬

Hm. On the one hand, Zach’s powers seem to have enabled him to block at least some of hepped-up Thwip’s blows and wear him down. On the other hand, they don’t seem to have kept him from panicking and potentially causing others to panic. Wouldn’t “truth powers” suggest that staying as calm as possible (under the circumstances) when dodging threats, and alerting others to threats, is the best policy?

Alice, this close to the end I’ll field this question directly. Zach’s spent his super-powered life torn between what his powers tell him and his often uncontrollable emotional reactions. In this case he could see the patterns clearly enough to realize his death was near, some time before it happened, and as the final dominoes fell into place, that sense of danger increased. He was too preoccupied with avoiding threats at all to do so with calm efficiency.

Or to put it another way, knowing you shouldn’t panic isn’t always enough to keep you calm, especially when you know that “not panicking” probably won’t be enough to keep you safe.

Does this strike nobody as unfathomably wasteful? Couldn’t the US government hire him as the ultimate counter-assassination expert, or the Disney squad hire him as a marketing genius? Why kill him off if the Emir was already dead?

MaulMachine: Likewise. I’m strongly reminded of the scene where he asked them to let him help them fix the world…

Regarding Alice’s guess, my own impression is that they were planning to dispose of him from the start (once they knew how), rather than suddenly moved to throw him away.

Still an incredible, incredible waste, when he was so willing to help them and the world in general in the first place.

–Hm. Something which undermines my impression is that, if they were planning his death from the start, he hopefully would have more clearly noticed it earlier on.
|
On the other hand, if he /did/ notice it earlier… actually, rephrasing that given the Word of God: Given that he noticed it some time before the final parallel attacks (ahh, right, and of course it’s separately confirmed that he’d already realised by the time he left his love interest…), it’s instead horribly wasteful that he didn’t take early action while there was still time remaining to ensure his safety.

A lot of things can be done with a lot of money, which was at least at one point under his control (though hypothetically could have been frozen). If several other countries were also aimed against him then he might have nowhere to run, but he could have at least given them a chase to remember before falling (rather like the contents of this strip, but on a much larger scale).

He had the power to see his death coming, and the power to get out of there and heighten his chances of survival. Given that he evidently isn’t willing to die if his country wants him dead, his failure to do anything and instead wait for death to come to him is straightforwardly irresponsible.

/Or/ this could be like the end of a certain Sherlock-adaptation episode and there will be a twist ending in which it’s revealed that he’s in fact still alive and set up most of the whole thing in order to stop them from chasing him by faking his own death. That could explain the ‘towards the Science Hall’, in that assuming it played a part in his plan to be in there, rather than just running towards two further threats… in any case, that ending would be enjoyable. Thought to be dead (and also thus ‘protecting those close to him’, specifically the love interest) he can then spend time on secretively fixing/improving the world.

Alternatively, he could be captured in the gassed state and then immobilised, used to non-wastefully help the government (knowing that he tells the truth, maybe doing things to him to get the truth straight from his subconcious) while not free to leave and do things they might not like.

For both of the last two possibilities, the last panel showing him (and Thwip) still conscious and the use of the word ‘defeat’ rather than ‘kill’ suggests the possibility of him surviving, one way or another.

–Hmm, a compromise option would be if the whole thing was staged between him and the government in order to throw off /other/ organisations… or, well, between him and another organisation in order to throw off all other organisations, whether the staging organisation is the government or not. Hm.

In any case, this story has strongly brought ‘Understand’ by Ted Chiang to mind.

Enjoyable.

Saddening if he actually did die like this, leaving nothing. –Well, even in that case, ‘someone else with the same genetic quirk Awakening and maybe staying more fully under the radar’ could be a ray of hope…

*significant curiosity regarding whether there will be an important revelation in the last two pages*

(The more I look at the panels, the stronger the impression I get that he’s deliberately putting on a show for others. Facing with his /back/ to the poisoned goods (rather than, say, staring at them in horror) (and arms in a thearetrical pose of surprise, rather than up in a warning gesture or similar), the getting close to and shouting to passers-by, which both doesn’t benefit him and if anything would put them in more danger; he can’t tell direct falsehoods without pain, but it looks as though, one way or another, he’s putting on an act (for the benefit of someone either close by watching/listening, or people liable to indirectly hear of witness reports afterward).

This brings to mind the point that the raving at the start would however have to be true (for there to be no headache)… they would have to be actually poisoned, and there would have to actually be a sniper… and ‘they’ would have to actually not care about collateral damage… but either those matters could deliberately be set up for the sake of believability, or they could be arranged seriously with him being ready for them and reacting thearetrically.

(And, of course, there’s the previous question of ‘Why would he run to the science hall, of all possible buildings–how is ‘things set up in there’ and ‘him running for there of all places’ connected, other than him deliberately going there because he knew what was in there and had something to gain by being there?’.) *curiosity…*)

Final page:
Disney lady is at hanging up the phone and sees ZZ reflected in her monitor.
“Congratulations. You did it. You really did it.
You got me to watch Jason Bourne movies.
Are you happy now?”
She turns, but he’s already gone.

Well, any gas that isn’t oxygen will kill you in large enough quantities. Not necessarily because it’s poisonous, but because it replaces the oxygen. And I don’t think pure oxygen is very healthy for long periods of time, either.

I’m still waiting on the contents of that envelope to come to light. the way things are going it is most likly a message left for jo. hopefuly one to tell her where to meet him after all the mess has died down.